Ted Cruz duped by fake image of shark on flooded LA highway

Senator Ted Cruz later wrote: ‘I’m told this is a joke. In LA, you never know.’ Photograph: Michael Laughlin/AP

The Texas US senator Ted Cruz, a former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, appeared on Monday to fall for one of the oldest internet hoaxes, sharing a supposed picture of a shark on a flooded highway in Los Angeles with the remark: “Holy crap.”

California does indeed face potentially catastrophic flooding thanks to Storm Hilary but users of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, were swift to point out that the image Cruz reposted is in fact wholly crap.